Law, culture, and Catholicism...up in smoke!

Monday, August 28, 2006

Feast of S. Augustine

An acqaintance of mine--a WWII veteran and survivor of the Bataan death march--told me that the one book that he read and re-read during his service in WWII was the Confessions of St. Augustine. I suppose the prospect of one's death tends to focus the mind. Soldiers do a thankless job and are exposed to such horror and evil that they need and thirst for God, especially since they themselves know that their meeting with Him may be right around the next corner. Anyway, this old soldier took such comfort in the great saint's words that he could not exhaust the riches of the book or its human and spiritual insights. (What a relic that dog-eared copy of the Confessions would be--having likely survived in the cargo pockets of that soldier's uniform trousers!)

Augustine was a very gifted intellectual, but also a man who was racked with the desires of the flesh and what might be described as concupiscence on overdrive. His famous utterance, "O Lord make me chaste, but not yet" attests to his struggle with intellectually knowing what is true, good and beautiful, but not having gotten control of his own disordered self to choose true love over a lesser "perceived" love. Echoes of St. Paul's "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" abound in the Confessions--be it fleshly desires for sensual pleasure, for glory, for recognition. How very human indeed!

A man reading this work in a foxhole in 1942 would be able to relate to the 4th century saint, because it is the story of the human condition. Likewise, you and I, living as we are in a concupiscence-driven society 17 centuries later, can still recognize the struggles that this most human of saints endured. Who could also forget Augustine's emotional attachments? He recounts why he went to shows--to cry and be moved! Here is a guy who for a long time never grew up. He was taken in by the emotion of what he saw, heard and smelled. He judged the goodness of something by the emotional effect it had upon him. Not unlike many today who judge their faith by experience alone--be it the smells and bells of the Tridentine Mass or the "couldaboughtahonda" jibberish of the charismatics--rather than the confoming of the mind to reality and recognizing God's revelation--even in the mundane task of chasing a disabled child in the vestibule of the church while the Mass is being offered.

Yet, behind Augustine's struggle (which in some sense is the struggle of every human being) there was a person who prayed for him. A person who never lost faith in the One who would unite her son eventually with Him. St. Monica, the woman who one time carried her little son as a small child, wished to carry him in her bosom of faith during his most troubled times. Again--how very human! No doubt my soldier friend's mother prayed for him while he was away at war. No doubt my mother prays for me! Likewise, behind each and every human being there is someone who cares for him and prays for him. Even the most forgotten person on the streets of Darfur has a cloistered Carmelite praying for him. Do not underestimate these prayers! God's grace motivates and goads us into action--sometimes we don't know whence it comes. Likely, it comes from our mothers, even our spiritual ones.

When Augustine did finally convert, he recognized the many prayers that his mother offered for his soul and his conversion. Truly one of the most moving episodes in the Confessions is the Augustine's recounting of his mother's death. The Latin is so beautiful it bears reproduction here: